Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

Note 1. Scholastic Theology is so called for a threefold reason. First, because this theology is chiefly taught and learned in the Schools; whereas Positive theology is acquired by one's own study and by the private and assiduous reading of the sacred Scriptures and by the exercise of the holy Fathers. Second, because in the Academic and philosophical manner, from the principles of the divine faith known immediately or mediately, it elicits its conclusions through legitimate discourse, so that it may explain the mysteries of the faith more clearly, defend them courageously against those who attack them, and, by resolving all the contradictions and entanglements which could be raised against them, persuade that they are the more easily to be believed. Third and finally, it is so called by a certain analogy with Philosophy; for just as Philosophy is engaged in investigating natural things, so Scholastic Theology is chiefly detained and occupied with the divine natural law, that is, with truths altogether immutable; of which sort are not only the essence of God, His perfections, the Trinity of persons; but also the worship due to Him according to Himself: nay, and His divine precepts, and all the means which conduce to the attainment of God; not indeed as they are actually existing; for in that way these are altogether free, and are considered rather by Positive than by Scholastic Theology: but as they are possible, and inasmuch as they involve no contradiction, namely that the Theologian may show that there is no repugnance in the works of God; and that grace does not obstruct nature, nay rather perfects it; and that all the mysteries of the faith are not contrary, although they are not according to natural reason.

Note 2. It is most certain that Positive or Scholastic Theology, individual faithful being considered singly, is not absolutely necessary for the attainment of salvation. The reason is clear; for many rustics, wholly rude and ignorant of theological matters, as dwelling in the fields almost always and among cattle, nevertheless believe the Articles of the faith most firmly, and, fortified with the holy sacraments of the Church, depart happily from this life and attain eternal salvation. Nay, Scholastic Theology does not even seem absolutely necessary to the whole assembly of the faithful, or to the entire Church; since before the times of the Master of the Sentences, who around the year 1140 reduced Theology to academic form and method, the Church long flourished in piety and doctrine, and was furnished with sufficient means both for instructing its own people in matters of faith, and for repelling the force of heretics and eliminating error.

Note 3. Scholastic Theology is necessary for individual faithful, at least mediately, but for the whole Church immediately, by a moral necessity, or one of the greatest advantage and of the highest utility; for individual faithful have need of Doctors, who may render the Articles of the faith, obscure and difficult in themselves, credible by various reasons proposed; and may dilute and dissolve all the doubts which can arise either from each one's own talent, or be suggested by the art of the devil, or finally be proposed from the perversity of heretics: for rude faithful, exposed to so many perils, if they are deprived of the protection of Theologians of this kind, will with difficulty stand firm in the faith. The Church likewise, assailed by the darts of so many heretics, would be weakened, if those subtle princes of Theology were not present, who could unravel the tricks and fallacies of heretics, and dissipate the darkness of error cast over men's minds. Which indeed will be demonstrated more fully and more effectively

Only conclusion. — Scholastic Theology is supremely useful to the Church of God, and necessary. This is the judgment of all the wise against the heretics, and certain pseudo-Catholics.

It is proved first indeed from the universal consent of the whole Christian commonwealth, which venerated and embraced this methodical Theology as soon as it came forth into the world, and raised up most ample schools for teaching and learning it; enriched it with ample stipends for the Professors, and adorned it with honorable privileges.

Second. From the oracles of the Councils; for the Council of Constance approved Scholastic Theology more than enough, when in Session 8 it disapproved and condemned all the errors of Wicleff; especially that one by which he proclaimed that universities, studies, colleges, and masterships had been introduced by vain vanity. Likewise Clemens V, in the Council of Vienne, where he had established that baptism is necessary for salvation both for adults and for little children, adds: But, because as regards the effect of baptism certain theological Doctors are found to have held contrary opinions; some of them saying that by the power of baptism guilt is indeed remitted to little children, but grace is not conferred: others on the contrary asserting that both guilt is remitted to them in baptism, and the virtues and informing grace are infused as to habit, although not for that time as to use; We, however, attending to the general efficacy of the death of Christ, because through baptism it is applied equally to all the baptized, have judged that the second opinion, which says that informing grace and the virtues are conferred in baptism on little children as well as on adults, is to be chosen as the more probable, and the more consonant and agreeable to the sayings of the Saints and of the modern Doctors of Theology, the sacred Council approving.

— From which it is plainly clear how much authority not only so great a Pontiff, but also the universal Church, attributes to the Scholastic Theologians; since in a matter of such moment he wills and decrees that one must adhere to the opinion approved by several of them; what if all had conspired among themselves with one constant accord? It is of no avail to relate how much aid and dignity the Scholastic Doctors have contributed in the other subsequent Ecumenical Councils, by sifting each most difficult question and weighing them on both sides, so that the truth might appear the more easily, and the false dogmas of the heretics might utterly fall and vanish; for this only he can be ignorant of who has not read the acts of those Councils. Hence the Council of Trent sanctioned by several decrees that colleges should be instituted in all places, and that Academies should be endowed with all graces and privileges.

Third. The same thing is evident from the decrees and judgment of the Supreme Pontiffs: since Innocentius IV commanded our Alexander Alensis (who, on account of his supreme learning, was called while he lived the Fountain of life) and by Apostolic authority enjoined that he should write a Summa of Theology; which finally Alexander IV also approved by an Apostolic Diploma. And that I may pass over the other decrees of the Pontiffs, I relate one or another: First indeed that of Honorius III: for he, in the chapter Super specula, concerning masters, decreed:

Some are destined to the study of the profession of Theology, who, when they have been brought into the Church of God, may shine like the splendor of the firmament: and from whom afterwards a supply of Doctors may be had, who, as stars about to remain unto perpetual eternities, may be zealous to teach many unto justice.

Gregory IX commends this very thing excellently in an Epistle directed to the Masters and Students of the Parisian Academy for the restoration of studies, and dated at the Lateran in the 5th year of his Pontificate, in the month of April, where among the other praises of this Academy he has these words:

Paris, the parent of the sciences, like another Cariath-Sepher, a city of letters, shines clear: great indeed, but of itself it makes greater things to be desired, gracious to those who teach and to those who learn. In the cross indeed, as in a special workshop of wisdom, it has the beginnings of its veins of silver, and for gold there is a place in which it is duly smelted: from which the prudent, forging golden chains of mystic eloquence fretted with silver, and fashioning necklaces adorned with precious stones, nay, to be compared with no price, adorn the Spouse of Christ.

Fourth. The utility and necessity of Scholastic Theology appears from its offices and duties; for its principal offices are four; namely, the declarative, the probative, the defensive, and the discursive; which it is allowed to gather from St. Augustine, lib. 11. De Trinitate, cap. 1., where, speaking of Theology, which he calls science and wisdom, he says: To this science is attributed that by which the most saving faith, which leads to true beatitude, is begotten, nourished, defended, strengthened. From which the generation and nourishment of faith conduce to the utility of the faithful; but its defense and strength conduce to the conquest of the unbelievers. For St. Augustine adds:

With this science very many of the faithful do not abound, although they abound very much in the faith itself; for it is one thing to know only what a man ought to believe for the sake of obtaining the blessed life, which is none other than eternal, but another to know in what manner this very thing both helps the pious and is defended against the impious.

But that Scholastic Theology contributes most to the generation, nourishment, defense, and strength of faith through its four offices is easily shown. For by declaration faith is begotten; for by the explanation of Sacred Scripture and the proposal of the revealed object, faith is begotten dispositively; since faith is from hearing, and hearing through the word of God. Rom. 10. By proof faith is strengthened; for the reasons, similitudes, motives and examples by which the Scholastic Theologians elucidate the articles of the faith and show them credible, strengthen and cherish the weak and wavering faith of the feeble. By defense faith is fortified as with a firm shield, in which, as St. Paul speaks, Ephes. 6., it can extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one; for while the Scholastic Theologians detect the fallacious reasonings of the heretics and the tricks and sophisms of those who philosophize badly with the torch of reasoning, and dissolve them into smoke, faith triumphs safe and victorious. By discourse faith is nourished; for when through theological discourse it appears that the articles of the faith are not contrary, although they are beyond and above natural reason; nay, for the most part they are shown conformable to the principles of nature, it is certain that the intellect is inclined more and more to give them a firmer and more tenacious assent, whence it happens that faith is, as it were, nourished and grows.

Fifth and finally, just as there is no one who does not receive the Theology of the holy Fathers with the highest praises, and does not judge it most useful and most necessary to the Church of God; so there is no one who ought to judge Scholastic Theology useless and to be rejected: for it has the same object as the Theology of the holy Fathers, rests on the same principle, and aims at the same end, namely the explanation of the faith and of the mysteries, the extirpation of heresies, the instruction of the faithful, etc. Nor does this differ from that in anything, except that with a better method and order it reduces into one body those things which the holy Fathers treated in various places, as the occasion offered, and aptly disposes each thing in its own place. Whence, just as no one in his right mind would judge Aristotle worthy of blame, because he ordered Philosophy, previously disturbed, undigested, and dissipated, delivered it with supreme art, distributed it into parts, to which he recalled all things in order, and enlarged it in many places; so far is it from being the case that the Scholastic Theologians are worthy of reproaches, that rather they merit the highest praise among all, because they have performed the same service for Theology, and have ordered it in the place and by the method in which it now is, and have enlarged it with many questions explanatory of the divine mysteries. For Scholastic Theology so investigates, weighs, and sifts all the dogmas of the faith, that it leaves almost nothing untouched and undiscussed: for the various difficulties and questions omitted by the ancient Fathers, or at least briefly touched upon, it has excogitated more subtly, proposed more clearly, explained more abundantly, and has weighed them, tested by the norm of faith or by the exact rule of reason. Whence not undeservedly the Scholastic Theologians can be called the Doctors and Fathers of the Church of their time; for they surely play the part of those ancient Doctors of the nascent Church, who illustrated the dogmas of God by their doctrine, and defended them most fiercely from the attacks of the heretics. — Add. That against Theology of this kind, which is most pleasing to all the pious and learned, only grammatical idiots, and heretics and men of heretical parties, speak ill; of whom the first are no more to be heard than the blind judging of colors; the latter, indeed, are to be made as much of as the frenzied who struggle against the physician and medicine, to whom these words of Augustine fitly apply, lib. 3. De peccatorum meritis et remissione, cap. 6: Because they were not such men as that I should be solicitous about their authority, I easily held this among things past and abolished. — Our Sixtus V confirms all these things no less luculently than wisely. For he, the supreme Pontiff of the Church of God, in the decretal letters by which he numbers the holy Bonaventure among the distinguished Doctors and Fathers of the Church, where he had said that Scholastic Theology was invented by the divine gift through most wise men, adds:

The knowledge, indeed, of this so salutary science, which flows from the most abundant fountains of the divine letters, of the Supreme Pontiffs, and of the Councils, could certainly always bring the greatest aid to the Church, whether for reading the Fathers more safely and more usefully, or for detecting and refuting the various errors and heresies, etc.

The heretics object: Scholastic Theology is far from the gravity and skill of speaking of the ancient Theologians: for the Doctors and the first Fathers of the Church treated the divine mysteries more weightily; for they judged nothing without the authority of Scripture, or the opinion of the prior Fathers and the definition of Councils; but those syllogistic formulas, the mousetraps of the weak, they either did not know, or as useless they shunned and rejected: but the Theologians of this time, having omitted all things which most become the faithful, examine all things on the balance and scale of reason: therefore this theology is to be cast away as useless. — I deny the antecedent. For as was said above, Scholastic Theology differs from the doctrine of the holy Fathers in this alone, that those things which they disputed more diffusely, and in an oratorical style more accommodated to the understanding of the common people, in whole books and volumes, this concludes in a brief and dialectical manner of speaking, sometimes by one or another reasoning. Wherefore if there is anything in which the more recent Theology disagrees with the old, for that very reason it ought to seem worthy of more utility and advantage to its students, and therefore of greater commendation and celebrity.

The heretics press: All novelty is to be avoided, and to be cast far away from the Church: therefore this scholastic doctrine, as being a new invention of later centuries, is to be banished far away. — I distinguish the antecedent. The novelty of dogmas is to be feared and is not to be heard, until it has been examined and reprobated by the Church, I concede: the novelty of the method of handing on doctrine, especially if it be clearer and easier, is to be rejected, I deny: nay, Christ himself, praising the Theologian, Matth. 13., makes him like a man who is the father of a family, who brings forth from his treasury new and old things. Not that he ought to teach new dogmas opposed to the old: but that he should teach and explain the old by a new method, as Vincentius Lirinensis warns, cap. 27.

Let it be understood, he says, more clearly through you who explain it than it was formerly believed more obscurely: through you may posterity congratulate itself for understanding what antiquity venerated without understanding: teach the same things which you have learned in such a way that, when you say them in a new way, you do not say new things.

Scholastic theology carries this out above all to the letter, for it does not hand down new dogmas, but the things which were said by the ancients, whether more diffusely and copiously or more lightly, it touches upon more acutely, and searches out and explains more profoundly.

They object 2. Scholastic theology is wholly occupied in discussing certain vain philosophical questions, which contribute absolutely nothing to salvation and to the illustration of the dogmas of faith: therefore it is to be dismissed as useless. — I answer 1. The antecedent is altogether false, for experience itself shows that Scholastic Theologians treat the things of faith accurately and exactly from the very principles of faith, namely Sacred Scripture, the doctrine of the holy Fathers, the sanctions of the Councils, and the other sanctuaries of Catholic truth, from which they elicit conclusions through legitimate discourse; which greatly contributes to the elucidation of the mysteries, the confutation of heresies, and the instruction of the faithful; for as Melchior Cano aptly says, loc. 8. cap. 1.: If you remove reason from Theology, you will lose both the thing and the name; because science is sought only through the syllogism... for what difference is there, when reason is removed, not only between a rustic and a Theologian, but between a Theologian and a beast, or a stone, or a block? — Secondly, if Scholastic Theology were to be rejected for this reason, that on the occasion and for the sake of treating divine things it discusses some philosophical questions which do not per se contribute to salvation, by a similar argument sacred Scripture would have to be cast aside, as reporting many things that do not lead to salvation: for instance when it deals with the histories of the Patriarchs, the Judges, the Kings, with the animals brought into Noah's ark and led out of it, with the dog of Tobias wagging its tail, and countless other things, the knowledge of which per se contributes nothing to salvation. — I say therefore that all useless contentions and quarrels among Theologians are to be ascribed not to Theology, but to the Theologian who wills to know more than he ought. What then? Are not heretics daily abusing sacred Scripture to the ruin of faith; should it therefore be dismissed? Or is the crop to be burned and rooted out because sometimes among the ears of wheat oats and tares grow up? By no means, but the useless weeds are to be plucked out, the crop is to be left untouched. All those vain questions, I admit, are to be cut off: but those which serve to explain and illustrate theological matters are to be kept and discussed.

They object 3. That perpetual dissensions blaze among Theologians, and that their writings are wholly filled with quarrels and contentions; nor is there any limit to their wrangling among themselves: nothing therefore certain, nothing stable can be found among them. — I answer. Theologians do not disagree among themselves in those things which pertain to faith, but are supremely in concord among themselves; that they differ in other matters is no inconvenience: nay, various matters are greatly illustrated thereby, and truth shines forth more and more each day: for while each one defends his own part, and strives to confirm his own opinion with reasons gathered from every side and to cultivate it with every kind of learning, infinite treasures of the sciences are little by little heaped up for the honor and ornament of the Church, and all disciplines are rendered complete in all their parts. — I answer 2. Heretics unjustly blame the dissension of Theologians: for he who casts a crime upon another must needs be innocent, lest he constitute himself guilty of the fault which he reproves in another. Who, however, does not know with how many quarrels and how hostile contentions heretics fight among themselves? For scarcely was the Lutheran sect born, than it was immediately cut into three other classes, and divided into Anabaptists, Confessionists, and Sacramentarians, as into three heads, and in its very infancy made three-headed: but soon, when it had grown up (for heresy is a fruitful parent of monsters), it thrust out now one and now another head from itself, and in a brief space of time grew into thirty-four sects: now indeed almost a hundred most diverse Religions are numbered as sprung from one Luther. Nor do they disagree among themselves only in lighter matters, but also in the principal Articles of faith, and brand upon one another the name and mark of heretic. Thus Luther, in his book Against the Sacramentarians, calls them and the Zwinglians heretics: and elsewhere says: Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the Sacramentarians, nor stood in the way of the Zwinglians, nor sat in the chair of the Zurichites: and not content with these, he even calls them devil-ridden, super-devil-ridden, and trans-devil-ridden. But they, to repay him in kind, say that Luther's mouth is full of devils, etc. — And what is the crown of inconstancy, one and the same sect so disagrees in the articles of faith that, leaving the earlier ones behind, it forges new and different dogmas day by day and proposes them to all to be believed. Hence George, the Saxon Duke, asked by the Catholics what the Lutherans there believed, said: I know what they now believe; what they will believe next year I am wholly ignorant: thus indeed are they carried from faith to faith, from religion to religion. Wherefore, most aptly to the present matter, St. Hilary, in the book to Constantius and Constans the Emperors:

It is dangerous, he was saying, and even astonishing to us, that there now exist as many faiths as wills: as many doctrines for us as there are customs, while faith is either written as we wish, or understood as we practice it, so that very many faiths burst forth in such a way that none may exist; nay, even yearly and monthly faiths about God are decreed, etc.

They object 4. Scholastic theology empties and extinguishes the merit of faith; therefore so far is it from benefiting faith in any way, that it greatly harms it. They prove the antecedent from St. Gregory, hom. 26. in Evang.: Faith has no merit where human reason supplies the proof: but through theological discourse natural reason supplies the proof to faith; for through it the intellect is moved to give its assent to the proposed object: therefore this empties the merit of faith. — I distinguish the antecedent. If the revealed proposition is believed only on account of the evidence of reason, it empties the merit of faith, I concede. If it is believed chiefly on account of the authority of God revealing, I deny. But theological discourse does not evidently demonstrate the revealed proposition; for it implies a contradiction that something should be revealed and be per se evident insofar as it is revealed; but it only demonstrates that that proposition is contained either in Scripture, or in the Councils, or in the universal tradition and practice of the Church. Hence it does not induce the intellect to assent to it on account of the evidence of reason: but only on account of the certain and infallible authority of the Revealer.

They insist. Scholastic theology relies most of all on philosophical and dialectical subtleties: but these greatly harm Faith and Christian truth: therefore, etc. They prove the Minor from the Apostles and the holy Fathers, who confess that Philosophy is the enemy and adversary of faith; for saint Paul admonished the Colossians, 2. cap.: See that no one deceive you through Philosophy and empty deceit: and Tertullian, lib. De Anima, cap. 3., calls Philosophers animals of glory and Patriarchs of Heretics, and in cap. 18 says that philosophical argumentations are torments for torturing simplicity and hanging truth, and in the same place calls Plato the condiment-maker of Heretics. Hence, in the book De praescriptionibus he says: God chose the foolish things of the world for the confusion of Philosophy itself; for it is the material of secular wisdom and the rash interpreter of the divine nature and disposition: in fine, heresies are furnished by Philosophy. What then has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What the Academy with the Church? What heretics with Christians? We have no need of curiosity after Christ, nor of inquiry after the Gospel; when we believe, we desire to believe nothing beyond.

Hence St. Gregory Nazianzen, in oration 26., grieves that Sophistic cavils and the depraved artifice of the Aristotelian art have crept into the Church, and other things of this kind, like certain Egyptian plagues. Likewise Gregory of Nyssa, lib. 2. against Eunomius, reproaches that sophistic cunning: We frankly and without shame confess, he says, that we have prepared neither any speech elaborated by rhetorical artifice nor a contest; nor do we put forward the subtlety of Dialectical acuteness as an aid against adversaries, which also brings truth into suspicion of falsehood among the unskilled. Ambrose also, lib. 1. De Fide, cap. 3., speaking of the Arians says:

They place all the force of their poisons in dialectical disputation, which by the opinion of the Philosophers is defined as having the power not of building up, but of the zeal of destroying: but it has not pleased God to save his people through Dialectic; for the kingdom of God is in the simplicity of faith, not in the contention of speech.

And in Psal. 118.: We have nothing to do with Philosophy, lest it draw our faith from the truth through the elements of this world: lest anyone plunder our assertion through Philosophy. For thus we have learned that the Arians fell into perfidy, while they think that the generation of Christ is to be gathered from the usage of this age. They abandoned the Apostle, they follow Aristotle; they abandoned the wisdom which is with God; they chose the little snares of disputation and the bird-catching of words according to the discipline of Dialectic: therefore Scholastic theology is proscribed by the holy Fathers, and so is to be exploded by us. — I distinguish the major. That it relies on philosophical subtleties to detect the sophisms of heretics and to eliminate their tricks, I concede: that it relies on them to circumvent the simplicity of faith and to obscure the Catholic truths, I deny. To the minor I say that Philosophy is adverse to faith not per se, but through the perverse malice of those who philosophize, who, as saint Jude speaks, vers. 1: For the things which they know not, they blaspheme; but the things which they know naturally, as dumb animals, in these they are corrupted. — And that this and no other is the opinion of the holy Fathers is clear from this, that they themselves adorn Dialectic with many praises, and confess that it is necessary for the defense of Faith: for St. Clement of Alexandria, lib. 2. Stromata says: Dialectic leads by the hand to the true and eternal wisdom, and to the knowledge of the supreme truth. St. Jerome, on cap. 25. of Ezekiel: Truly, he says, whatever of perverse dogmas is shown to be strong in earthly wisdom is overthrown by this Dialectical art, and, like a fire, is dissolved into ashes and cinders. St. Augustine inculcates the same in many places, but especially in the books against Cresconius, who mockingly called Augustine a Dialectician: But even the Apostle, namely Paul, was a dialectician, Augustine answered in lib. 2., and freely did not fear to dispute with the Stoics, because not only acutely, like them, but also truthfully, which they were not. He subjoins: Beware lest you cast Dialectic as a crime against anyone, Dialectic which you confess the Apostles used. Nay, he even shows that Christ the Lord used Dialectic: But if you call Christ a Dialectician, you will praise the Dialectic which you cast at me as a crime: therefore the treatment and method of those philosophical matters, which can be of use for better explaining or more accurately defending the things of faith, ought not to be judged useless or importunate. — Add. That heretics themselves are the cause why Scholastic Theologians discuss certain philosophical questions; for they are wont to argue from Philosophy against Catholics, v. g. that the same body cannot be at the same time in different places, so that they attack the real presence of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. So of old the Arians used philosophical arguments, or rather sophisms, against the mystery of the Trinity, in order to deceive Catholics; and they had (says St. Epiphanius) three hundred arguments from natural reason, with which they attacked the divinity of the Son. Hence it was necessary for Catholics to fight back with the same weapons of Dialectic with which they were assailed, and, the heretics compelling, to take up Philosophy in defense of faith, that with its help they might investigate the Evangelical truths more diligently and explain them more evidently. For as St. Augustine says, lib. 16. De Civit. Dei, cap. 2.: Many things pertaining to the Catholic faith, while they are pondered amid the cunning attack of heretics so that they can be defended against them, are both considered more diligently, and understood more clearly, and preached more insistently: and a question moved by the adversary becomes an occasion for learning. And as Gregory the Great says, lib. 14. Moral., cap. 12., When the heavier contests of enemies have come forth, then indeed are more sublime darts of the senses required; then the razor of arguments, then a more perplexed search of words. Justly therefore have Theologians taken up Dialectic to refute the fallacious subtleties of heretics and of Gentile Philosophers, which St. Basil, on the second Chapter of Isaiah, did not hesitate to call a wall to the sacred dogmas, because it does not allow them to be easily plundered and to lie open to the incursion of anyone. And Clement of Alexandria, lib. 6. Stromat., says that the same is the hedge of Christ's vineyard, lest the Catholic truth be trampled by Sophists.

They object 5. The accusers of Scholastic theology charge it with its uncultivated style, and with the harsher and barbarous words with which it expresses its meanings, which certainly disgrace wise men and depress and obscure the august mysteries of faith. — But if for this reason Scholastic theology does not please them, then the simplicity of the sacred Letters and the uncultivated manner of speaking ought also to displease them. Do they perchance not know that under a rough cloak a learned Philosopher often lies hidden, and that the roughest and most uncultivated mountains sometimes conceal the richest veins of gold? Truth has no need of verbal allurements to shine: it is better to express it in easy and common speech than to obscure it with affected elegance; that succinct brevity which Theologians use cannot bear a wider compass and ornament of speech, lest, already burdened by the abundance and multitude of things, they be crushed also by the useless burden of words. But that it employs certain words proper to itself and otherwise unheard of and unusual ought not to seem wonderful; since every discipline has its own terms unknown to others, and devised at the pleasure of those who teach. What will not be allowed to Theology, the queen of the sciences, which its handmaids freely usurp?

You will ask. Why in these later centuries alone have the sacred Doctors of Theology used the Scholastic method, when from the very beginnings of the Church itself the Positive theology was chiefly frequented?

I answer 1. This was done for very many and most weighty reasons. First indeed, because positive Theology savors more of the Platonic manner of teaching, inasmuch as, after the fashion of Plato, it makes great use of allegories and oratorical and rhetorical syllogisms; Scholastic theology, however, imitates the Aristotelian method of teaching through analysis and tighter syllogisms: God, however, willed

that the Platonic Philosophy should serve the children of the nascent Church for just reasons. Then because this manner of philosophizing and reasoning was more frequent among the Jews and the Gentiles, whose errors were to be attacked and conquered with the same weapons with which they were defended. Then because the Platonic Philosophy was less stubborn and more docile than the dogmatic; and the same was more apt for insinuating the truths of faith and persuading the divine mysteries. Then, finally, because, since it flourished and was illustrated very much with parables and allegories, it tempered the rays of divine truth with these coverings, and proposed them, as it were milk, to the still weaker capacity of the faithful. For the children of the Eastern Church were still like weak little ones, of whom St. Paul speaks to the Hebrews 5.: You have become such as have need of milk, not of solid food; for every one that partakes of milk is without experience of the word of justice, for he is a little one: but solid food is for the perfect, for those who by habit have their senses exercised to the discerning of good and evil. — It was fitting, therefore, that the children of the Church, still little ones, should first receive the Evangelical truths tempered by allegories and parables and be nourished, as it were, with milk, before, having grown greater and been exercised for many centuries in this heavenly doctrine, they would have the discerning of good and evil, and would separate the depraved dogmas of heretics from Catholic truths through analysis.

Secondly: It was unbecoming that, once the Gospel was published, the Christian truths should be reduced into theological summaries and various questions formed about them, which would both have disturbed the wavering faith of the faithful, and revealed the hidden mysteries to the infidels. It was necessary, therefore, that Allegory should precede Analysis, and that, with a new revelation of truths always coming to hand, the body of Catholic doctrine should, in the course of time, be, as it were, joined together, before it should be cut apart and distributed, as it were anatomically, through the resolutions and disputations of Scholastic Theology and through the dissections of Analysis.

But when the body of Evangelical doctrine stood solidly constituted in all its parts; then, for the easier understanding of the truths, it was fitting to reduce them into a certain and methodical order, and to take up the more contracted and briefer, but more urgent, Aristotelian manner of philosophizing; then so that the Evangelical truths should shine forth more brightly; then so that the tricks and sophisms of heretics should be more easily solved and cut asunder. — Add. That since Plato is wholly occupied in contemplating divine things, and learned very many truths of faith and not a few mysteries from the Hebrews in Egypt, and set them down in his writings; his Philosophy seemed by far more apt for persuading those truths to the Philosophers and Pagan Doctors than the Aristotelian, which is wholly detained about natural things, and scarcely searches out and investigates divine things. But when these divine truths were sufficiently and more than sufficiently published, and disseminated in the writings of the holy Fathers and set forth and approved in oratorical speech and rhetorical syllogisms; then it was necessary that Theologians should take up the Aristotelian analysis, and gather them into one body, and, after the manner of Anatomists, cut them apart with various questions and resolutions, as with so many dissections, so that each one might be more aptly ordered and appear more evidently.

There is no reason, therefore, why heretics should so much inveigh against this change of Theological Method, and long for the Positive and Oratorical Theology used by the holy Fathers to be frequented again, which, they say, they would not criticize, nay, would receive with the highest praises. But to them I can justly return what the adorable Savior returned to the Scribes and Pharisees, Matth. 23.:

Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, who build the sepulchres of the Prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just, and say: if we had been in the days of our Fathers, we would not have been their companions in the blood of the Prophets; so you are witnesses to yourselves, that you are the children of those who killed the Prophets. For what else are the heretics of this time than the children of those heretics who persecuted the holy Fathers and criticized their doctrine? Nor do they accomplish anything else while they assail the more modern Theologians with words and writings, than what the ancient heretics plotted against the sacred Doctors in the Church. These, indeed, the heirs of Arius, Nestorius, and Manichaeus, while they attack the Theologians, fill up the measure of their Fathers, and do the same things which they blame in others.